


Truth Telling

by dizzy



Category: Full House (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her dad and her uncles all think DJ had beer, but DJ doesn't understand how they can refuse to believe her after how her mother died. This fits into Full House season 3 episode 31, "Just Say No Way."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth Telling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wneleh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/gifts).



DJ is old enough to remember when they got the call saying that her mom was dead. She remembers the shell-shocked look on her father’s face and though he didn’t sit them down and tell them until later, she remembers knowing that something was very, very wrong. 

She’s also old enough to remember what life was like when her mom was still alive. Stephanie and Michelle are too young; Stephanie only remembers the best, and Michelle… as far as she’s concerned the arms that hold her when she cries have always belonged to the men in her life. 

But DJ remembers. She remembers how her mother was there packing her lunch every morning before school and making a snack afterwards. She remembers sitting at the counter while her mother listened to her talk about her day, the stupid little kid stuff like how she got a special prize from the teacher for being the best during read-aloud and what the snack that day was. 

She doesn’t remember her dad much at all from before. Her mom always said _Dad just works a lot, but aren’t you glad he’s taking care of us_? And it never mattered much, as long as Mom was around. Her mom was her entire world, and everything was… good. 

Then suddenly Mom wasn’t around at all and things turned upside down. Nothing feels quite as easy now. Nothing feels quite as normal as it should be. She’s not ashamed of her unconventional situation, just sometimes… 

She thinks of how it was, and she misses that. She knows exactly why her mom isn’t here and that’s why she sits in the bathroom crying because how can anyone know that she knows that a drunk driver killed her mom and still think she’d drink? 

The ironic thing is that if her mom were here, her mom would be the one that would believe her. Her Uncle Jesse likes to think he’s cool but sometimes he just looks right through her, like he’s not taking her seriously at all. For all Uncle Jesse thinks, she and Michelle are right on the same maturity level, and that’s just wrong. Her Uncle Joey turns everything into a joke, even when it’s not that funny at all. She feels bad for him when it’s obvious that he’s laughing so much just to act like he’s not confused himself. 

And her dad - her dad still looks around sometimes like he’s waiting for her mom to talk in the door. She hates those disappointed lectures, but she wants to argue back sometimes that making them feel bad doesn’t really help them. Dad thinks that once he’s spent five minutes having an Important Conversation about something with them, then it’s done and it should never be brought up again. 

Sometimes it feels like he does that with the memory of her mom, too. They had that one Important Conversation and then slowly all the pictures disappeared and it’s all your Uncle Joey and your Uncle Jesse and it’s like no one else ever existed in this house, no one else was ever her parent before the three of them. Sometimes she thinks it’s because he knows how much better at this her mom was, and she’d never tell him that but it’s true. Her dad acts like he’s being a parent out of a book sometimes. He recites his lines and he misses how sometimes they don’t even really understand what he’s saying to them, they just nod and smile because that’s what it takes to make him happy. Then he smiles like he’s just done something awesomely right and walks away, totally missing how they - well, Stephanie, of course, mostly Stephanie, since DJ is thirteen and older now - don’t even really get the point of what he was saying anyway. 

She misses when her Dad could just be a Dad that was around on the weekends, making sure they kept their room clean and letting her mom take care of all the rest of the stuff - like punishing them when they misbehaved, and explaining to them why some things were wrong and just… and _listening_ to them. Mom always listened when they talked. 

She thinks of the way Uncle Jesse yelled at her earlier and she hugs her pillow tighter. Stephanie’s gone downstairs, and she’s glad. It’s not like her little sister seeing her crying is that same kind of mortifying it would be if it were someone her age, but right now she just wants to be alone. She remembers how excited she was, how she and Kimmy spent hours picking out their outfits, how she knew everything was going to go perfectly. She’d thought it would be a fun night of listening to Uncle Jesse do the part of this whole thing he does best, the part where he shows up and is cool and impresses her friends. She was so wrong about all of it, and now she feels so alone. 

She closes her eyes and grasps on to the faintest memory of what it felt like to sit in this bed and rest her head on her mother’s shoulder, listen to her mother’s soft singing in her ear. 

Sometimes she tries to picture what it was like when her mother died and it hurts her so deep, so far inside. Tonight she thinks of what the man in the other car must have been feeling. She wonders if it was beer he had or something else, wine or… or whatever’s in those other bottles she sees in the stores sometimes. She wonders if he was at a party, too. If someone offered him a drink and he said yes. 

She throws the pillow off to the side. She can’t do this. She can’t just sit here and do nothing and let her dad think she could drink like the man that killed her mom did. She thinks of how much more trouble she’ll be in if they find out she’s going back to the school, but she doesn’t really care. If her dad, Uncle Joey, and Uncle Jesse don’t think enough of her to actually listen to her she’ll just prove to them that she’s not what they think she is.


End file.
